BASF's No2 Ludwigshafen cracker running on-spec, ramping up rates

14 June 2011 16:29[Source: ICIS news]

LONDON (ICIS)--BASF’s No 2 cracker at Ludwigshafen in Germany is running on-spec and currently ramping up operating rates after some technical problems hampered its earlier restart following planned maintenance, a company source said on Tuesday.

“We restarted over the weekend [11-12 June], we are on-spec with all products and we are currently ramping up to full utilisation,” the source said.

The cracker, which has a nameplate capacity of 400,000 tonnes/year of ethylene, went into a planned turnaround in late April and began the restart process on 3 June. However, the cracker encountered some technical problems on 6 June.

BASF also operates a smaller cracker at the Ludwigshafen site which has the capacity to produce 220,000 tonnes/year of ethylene.